The Patriarch Joseph in the Liturgy of Lent

The liturgy of Lent gives a particularly prominent place to the story of the Patriarch Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, as recounted in Genesis 37. It is read as the Epistle of today’s Mass (verses 6-22), then repeated in a longer form (verses 2-28) in the Office of the following Sunday, the third of Lent, as the readings of the first nocturn. Other stories from Genesis such as the Creation (chapter 1), the Flood of Noah (chapters 6-8) and the Blessing of Isaac (chapter 27) are read at one point in the Mass and another in Office, the last of these within the same week, but Joseph’s is repeated within only two days.

The Office reading is part of the regular cursus from Genesis which starts on Septuagesima Sunday; the Matins responsories for the third week of Lent are taken from the subsequent chapters, in which Joseph goes to Egypt, becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man, and ultimately saves his family from the great seven-year famine. In the Mass, the story is chosen specifically to be read on a Friday, looking forward to the Passion of Christ on Good Friday, because of the way it was interpreted by the Church Fathers.

Joseph’s dreams of the heavenly bodies and the sheaves of wheat (Genesis 37, 6-11); Florence Baptistery, ca. 1225. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko; CC BY 3.0. At this link, you can find images of excellent quality, in high enough resolution to see the individual tiles, of this extremely beautiful and complex mosaic ceiling.)

Already at the very beginning of the third century, Tertullian explained the sufferings of Joseph as a prefiguration of Christ’s Passion.

Joseph himself was also a figure of Christ, on this point alone … that he suffered persecution at the hands of his brethren, and was sold into Egypt, on account of the favor of God, just as Christ was sold by Israel, by his brothers, when He was betrayed by Judas. (Adversus Judaeos 10)

For St Ambrose, Joseph’s status as the youngest of Jacob’s children also makes him a figure of Christ, who comes as the last of God’s emissaries, like the son in the Parable of the Vineyard, which is read as the Gospel on this day, Matthew 21, 33-46. In his treatise On the Blessings of the Patriarchs (11, 48), which explains the blessings imparted by Jacob to his sons in Genesis 49, he writes:

My son, he says, is younger. Truly younger, because he was the last born. And the Scripture says “Jacob loved him, because he was the son of his old age. (Gen. 37, 3). This also refers to Christ; for the son of God, through the child-bearing of the Virgin Mary, came late, shining upon a world grown old and already failing, and as the son of old age according to the mystery took a body, even He that before the ages was always with the Father. (Ambrose’s citation of Genesis 49, 22, “filius meus adolescentior”, derives from the Septuagint reading of a famously difficult passage.)

The tunic of Joseph, which his brothers dipped in goat’s blood in order to make Jacob believe that he was killed by an animal, is then read as a symbol of the body which Christ took upon Himself in the Incarnation, so that He might undergo the Passion. The tunic was “bloodied”, as the body of Christ was bloodied, again looking forward from this Friday to Good Friday. St Ambrose says explicitly in his Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke (5, 107), “The tunic of Joseph was bloodied unto the likeness of the Lord’s body.” The Mass lectionary, however, ends with Ruben stopping the other brothers’ plan to kill Joseph, presuming that the hearers know how the story continues.

Jacob Receiving the Bloodied Tunic of Joseph, by Jan Lievens (1607-74); (public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Lent is, of course, also the period in which the Church prepares the catechumens to receive the Sacrament of Baptism on Easter night, and many of the traditional readings for the Lenten Masses are chosen with a view to their instruction. For St Augustine, Joseph prefigures the entry of the gentiles into the Church in Baptism; commenting on the words of Psalm 80, 6, “He ordained it for a testimony in Joseph, when he came out of the land of Egypt,” he says:

“Joseph” is translated as “increase.” You remember, you know that Joseph was sold into Egypt: (this is) Christ passing to the nations. … Joseph pertains more to the nations, and therefore (is called) “increase”, because “many are the sons of the desert, more than of her than hath a husband.” (Isaiah 54, 1; Augustine understand the “sons of the desert’ to be the gentiles, and the sons “of her that hath a husband” as the sons of Israel.) … When Joseph went out from the land of Egypt, which is to say, the people multiplied from Joseph, he was sent through the Red Sea… The passing of the people through the sea foretold in a figure exactly this, the passage of the faithful through Baptism. The Apostle is my witness; he says “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea.” (1 Cor. 10, 1-2) Therefore, the passage though the sea signified nothing else than the Sacrament of the baptized. (Exposition of Psalm 80)

This interpretation of the Passing of the Red Sea is also extremely ancient; the scene appears on many ancient Christian sarcophagi, and the story is read at the Easter vigil in all historical rites.

The Crossing of the Red Sea, depicted on a paleo-Christian sarcophagus, the front of which was sawn off and used as the front of an altar in the cathedral of Arles, France.

In his book specifically about Joseph, St Ambrose explains one of the dreams recounted in today’s Epistle as a prophecy of a different aspect of Christ’s life.

Finally, in the boy the divine grace showed forth, since indeed he dreamed, when he had bound sheaves with his brothers, that it might appear to him in a vision, his sheaf arose, and stood upright; and those of his brothers turned and worshipped his. In which assuredly the future resurrection of the Lord Jesus was revealed, whom the eleven disciples worshiped when they had seen him in Jerusalem… (De Joseph Patriarcha, cap. 2, 7)

The story of Joseph read on this Friday therefore prophesies not only what happens on Good Friday, the Passion, but also looks forward to the Friday of Easter week, when the traditional Gospel is St Matthew 28, 16-20, in which Christ meets the eleven disciples, “and they adored Him.”

In the post-Conciliar lectionary, the story has been retained, but is told through a different selection of verses, removing all but two glancing references to Joseph’s prophetic dreams (3-4, 12-13, and 17b-28). The verses added on to the traditional version of the readings (23-28), in which the brothers sell Joseph as a slave, rather than kill him, are no longer read in the Office, and therefore find a place in the Mass. The traditional Gospel has also been retained, but, like many of Our Lord’s harder sayings, verse 44 has been censored out of it: “And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.”

One of the most important features of Lent in the Byzantine Rite is the Canon of St Andrew of Crete, an extraordinarily beautiful series of meditations on sin and exhortations to repentance, filled with typological and mystical explanations of Scripture, drawn from both Testaments. The following four tropars refer to the story of Joseph.

tropar I confess to thee, o Christ the King: I have sinned, I have sinned, like Joseph’s brothers of old, who sold the fruit of chastity and of prudence. (The Church Fathers, and Jewish interpreters of the Bible before them, saw Joseph as a model of chastity, because he refused the advances of Potiphar’s wife, and of prudence, because of the way he saves not only his own family, but the whole of Egypt, from the famine.)

tropar The just soul was delivered up by his kinsmen; the one dear (to his father) was sold into slavery, as a type of the Lord; and you yourself, (my) soul, are sold entirely to your evil deeds.

tropar Imitate Joseph the just, and his prudent mind, my wretched, reprobate soul, and be no longer wanton, that dost ever transgress in unreasonable impulses.

tropar If Joseph did once dwell in a cistern, Master and Lord, it was as a type of Thy burial and resurrection; but what such thing may ever I bring to Thee?

Joseph Placed in the Cistern, and Sold to the Midianites; icon by Theodoros Poulakis, 1677-82. modelled on an engraving by the Flemish artist Jan Sadeler. From the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, Greece.

On Holy Monday, a special commemoration is made of Joseph.

tropar Joseph, making an image of the Lord, is put down into the cistern, he is sold away by his kinsman; famously, he suffereth all things, truly as a type of Christ. (From another Canon of St Andrew, sung at Compline.)

ikos Let us now add lamentation to lamentation, and pour forth tears, weeping with Jacob for Joseph, renowned and prudent, made a slave in body, but preserving his soul free from slavery, that became lord of all of Egypt, for God grants an unperishable crown to his servants. (At Orthros.)

The Patriarch Joseph in the Liturgy of Lent

The liturgy of Lent gives a particularly prominent place to the story of the Patriarch Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, as recounted in Genesis 37. It is traditionally read as the Epistle of today’s Mass (verses 6-22), then repeated in a longer form (verses 2-28) in the Office of the following Sunday, the third of Lent, as the readings of the first nocturn. Other stories from Genesis such as the Creation (chapter 1), the Flood of Noah (chapters 6-8) and the Blessing of Isaac (chapter 27) are read at one point in the Mass and another in Office, the last of these within the same week, but Joseph’s is repeated within only two days.

The Office reading is part of the regular cursus from Genesis which starts on Septuagesima Sunday; the Matins responsories for the third week of Lent are taken from the subsequent chapters, in which Joseph goes to Egypt, becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man, and ultimately saves his family from the great seven-year famine. In the Mass, the story is chosen specifically to be read on a Friday, looking forward to the Passion of Christ on Good Friday, because of the way it was interpreted by the Church Fathers.

Joseph’s dreams of the heavenly bodies and the sheaves of wheat (Genesis 37, 6-11); Florence Baptistery, ca. 1225. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko; CC BY 3.0. At this link, you can find images of excellent quality, in high enough resolution to see the individual tiles, of this extremely beautiful and complex mosaic ceiling.)

Already at the very beginning of the third century, Tertullian explained the sufferings of Joseph as a prefiguration of Christ’s Passion.

Joseph himself was also a figure of Christ, on this point alone … that he suffered persecution at the hands of his brethren, and was sold into Egypt, on account of the favor of God, just as Christ was sold by Israel, by his brothers, when He was betrayed by Judas. (Adversus Judaeos 10)

For St Ambrose, Joseph’s status as the youngest of Jacob’s children also makes him a figure of Christ, who comes as the last of God’s emissaries, like the son in the Parable of the Vineyard, which is read as the Gospel on this day, Matthew 21, 33-46. In his treatise On the Blessings of the Patriarchs (11, 48), which explains the blessings imparted by Jacob to his sons in Genesis 49, he writes:

My son, he says, is younger. Truly younger, because he was the last born. And the Scripture says “Jacob loved him, because he was the son of his old age. (Gen. 37, 3). This also refers to Christ; for the son of God, through the child-bearing of the Virgin Mary, came late, shining upon a world grown old and already failing, and as the son of old age according to the mystery took a body, even He that before the ages was always with the Father. (Ambrose’s citation of Genesis 49, 22, “filius meus adolescentior”, derives from the Septuagint reading of a famously difficult passage.)

The tunic of Joseph, which his brothers dipped in goat’s blood in order to make Jacob believe that he was killed by an animal, is then read as a symbol of the body which Christ took upon Himself in the Incarnation, so that He might undergo the Passion. The tunic was “bloodied”, as the body of Christ was bloodied, again looking forward from this Friday to Good Friday. St Ambrose says explicitly in his Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke (5, 107), “The tunic of Joseph was bloodied unto the likeness of the Lord’s body.” The Mass lectionary, however, ends with Ruben stopping the other brothers’ plan to kill Joseph, presuming that the hearers know how the story continues.

Jacob Receiving the Bloodied Tunic of Joseph, by Jan Lievens (1607-74); (public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Lent is, of course, also the period in which the Church prepares the catechumens to receive the Sacrament of Baptism on Easter night, and many of the traditional readings for the Lenten Masses are chosen with a view to their instruction. For St Augustine, Joseph prefigures the entry of the gentiles into the Church in Baptism; commenting on the words of Psalm 80, 6, “He ordained it for a testimony in Joseph, when he came out of the land of Egypt,” he says:

“Joseph” is translated as “increase.” You remember, you know that Joseph was sold into Egypt: (this is) Christ passing to the nations. … Joseph pertains more to the nations, and therefore (is called) “increase”, because “many are the sons of the desert, more than of her than hath a husband.” (Isaiah 54, 1; Augustine understand the “sons of the desert’ to be the gentiles, and the sons “of her that hath a husband” as the sons of Israel.) … When Joseph went out from the land of Egypt, which is to say, the people multiplied from Joseph, he was sent through the Red Sea… The passing of the people through the sea foretold in a figure exactly this, the passage of the faithful through Baptism. The Apostle is my witness; he says “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea.” (1 Cor. 10, 1-2) Therefore, the passage though the sea signified nothing else than the Sacrament of the baptized. (Exposition of Psalm 80)

This interpretation of the Passing of the Red Sea is also extremely ancient; the scene appears on many ancient Christian sarcophagi, and the story is read at the Easter vigil in all historical rites.

The Crossing of the Red Sea, depicted on a paleo-Christian sarcophagus, the front of which was sawn off and used as the front of an altar in the cathedral of Arles, France.

In his book specifically about Joseph, St Ambrose explains one of the dreams recounted in today’s Epistle as a prophecy of a different aspect of Christ’s life.

Finally, in the boy the divine grace showed forth, since indeed he dreamed, when he had bound sheaves with his brothers, that it might appear to him in a vision, his sheaf arose, and stood upright; and those of his brothers turned and worshipped his. In which assuredly the future resurrection of the Lord Jesus was revealed, whom the eleven disciples worshiped when they had seen him in Jerusalem… (De Joseph Patriarcha, cap. 2, 7)

The story of Joseph read on this Friday therefore prophesies not only what happens on Good Friday, the Passion, but also looks forward to the Friday of Easter week, when the traditional Gospel is St Matthew 28, 16-20, in which Christ meets the eleven disciples, “and they adored Him.”

In the post-Conciliar lectionary, the story has been retained, but is told through a different selection of verses, removing all but two glancing references to Joseph’s prophetic dreams (3-4, 12-13, and 17b-28). The verses added on to the traditional version of the readings (23-28), in which the brothers sell Joseph as a slave, rather than kill him, are no longer read in the Office, and therefore find a place in the Mass. The traditional Gospel has also been retained, but, like many of Our Lord’s harder sayings, verse 44 has been censored out of it: “And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.”

One of the most important features of Lent in the Byzantine Rite is the Canon of St Andrew of Crete, an extraordinarily beautiful series of meditations on sin and exhortations to repentance, filled with typological and mystical explanations of Scripture, drawn from both Testaments. The following four tropars refer to the story of Joseph.

tropar I confess to thee, o Christ the King: I have sinned, I have sinned, like Joseph’s brothers of old, who sold the fruit of chastity and of prudence. (The Church Fathers, and Jewish interpreters of the Bible before them, saw Joseph as a model of chastity, because he refused the advances of Potiphar’s wife, and of prudence, because of the way he saves not only his own family, but the whole of Egypt, from the famine.)

tropar The just soul was delivered up by his kinsmen; the one dear (to his father) was sold into slavery, as a type of the Lord; and you yourself, (my) soul, are sold entirely to your evil deeds.

tropar Imitate Joseph the just, and his prudent mind, my wretched, reprobate soul, and be no longer wanton, that dost ever transgress in unreasonable impulses.

tropar If Joseph did once dwell in a cistern, Master and Lord, it was as a type of Thy burial and resurrection; but what such thing may ever I bring to Thee?

Joseph Placed in the Cistern, and Sold to the Midianites; icon by Theodoros Poulakis, 1677-82. modelled on an engraving by the Flemish artist Jan Sadeler. From the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, Greece.

On Holy Monday, a special commemoration is made of Joseph.

tropar Joseph, making an image of the Lord, is put down into the cistern, he is sold away by his kinsman; famously, he suffereth all things, truly as a type of Christ. (From another Canon of St Andrew, sung at Compline.)

ikos Let us now add lamentation to lamentation, and pour forth tears, weeping with Jacob for Joseph, renowned and prudent, made a slave in body, but preserving his soul free from slavery, that became lord of all of Egypt, for God grants an unperishable crown to his servants. (At Orthros.)

The Feast of All Saints 2020: The Patriarchs and Prophets

From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the fourth day in the Octave of All Saints.

The holy solemnity of this day is also of course dedicated to the saints most dear to God, the fathers of the Old Testament, whose prayers and deeds rightly should be both remembered and imitated. Greatly desiring the coming of the Savior, being chosen and raised up (by God) in the promise made to the royal house, and in the priestly succession, they beat down their enemies, and raised up a temple to the Lord as a type of the Church, to show that Our Lord Jesus Christ would break down the tyrannical law of the devil, for the salvation of the faithful, and being Himself both king and priest, would order a royal priesthood in His Church. Upon these men, glorious in their virtues and the merits of their lives, followeth the chosen order of the holy Prophets, to whom was entrusted, because of the purity of their lives, the blessed series of revelations, telling of the salvation that was to come, and the same portion of inheritance promised. At the last, the Forerunner of Christ, John, succeeded them, a man wholly angelic, of whom the Lord Himself foretold through the mouth of Malachi, “Behold I send my angel before Thy countenance, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee.”

Christ’s Appearance to the People, by the Russian painter Alexander Ivanov (1806-58), now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. This painting took the artist 20 years to complete, from 1837 to 1857, for which reason he was called “the master of a single work.” (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The Feast of All Saints 2019: The Patriarchs and Prophets

From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the third day in the Octave of All Saints.

Having invited the orders of the heavenly army and accompanied them with due honors, let us hasten to recite the merits of those who, being of like origin with us, of the earth and upon it, through the grace of God and their own merit, much greater than our own, obtain blessedness in Heaven. Among those chosen by the divine goodness before the Law and under the Law stands the praiseworthy company of the holy Fathers, Patriarchs and Prophets. And the greatest among them all, John the Baptist, holds the first place, who was conceived at the message of the same angel as Christ. At the beginning of his preaching and baptism for the forgiveness of sins, he recognized Him that takes away the crimes of the world on sight, and with his own finger pointed him out. Rightly is he called the precursor of the Lord, the herald of the Judge, and prophet of the most High, since when not yet born, he preceded Christ into this world with wondrous exultation, and in his glorious passion went before Him as He descended into the next.

The Virgin and Child with Ss John the Baptist and Stephen, by Michelangelo Anselmi, ca. 1530

The Patriarch Joseph in the Liturgy of Lent

The liturgy of Lent gives a particularly prominent place to the story of the Patriarch Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, as recounted in Genesis 37. It is traditionally read as the Epistle of today’s Mass (verses 6-22), then repeated in a longer form (verses 2-28) in the Office of the following Sunday, the third of Lent, as the readings of the first nocturn. Other stories from Genesis such as the Creation (chapter 1), the Flood of Noah (chapters 6-8) and the Blessing of Isaac (chapter 27) are read at one point in the Mass and another in Office, the last of these within the same week, but Joseph’s is repeated within only two days.

The Office reading is part of the regular cursus from Genesis which starts on Septuagesima Sunday; the Matins responsories for the third week of Lent are taken from the subsequent chapters, in which Joseph goes to Egypt, becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man, and ultimately saves his family from the great seven-year famine. In the Mass, the story is chosen specifically to be read on a Friday, looking forward to the Passion of Christ on Good Friday, because of the way it was interpreted by the Church Fathers.

Joseph’s dreams of the heavenly bodies and the sheaves of wheat (Genesis 37, 6-11); Florence Baptistery, ca. 1225. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko; CC BY 3.0. At this link, you can find images of excellent quality, in high enough resolution to see the individual tiles, of this extremely beautiful and complex mosaic ceiling.) 

Already at the very beginning of the third century, Tertullian explained the sufferings of Joseph as a prefiguration of Christ’s Passion.

Joseph himself was also a figure of Christ, on this point alone … that he suffered persecution at the hands of his brethren, and was sold into Egypt, on account of the favor of God, just as Christ was sold by Israel, by his brothers, when He was betrayed by Judas. (Adversus Judaeos 10)

For St Ambrose, Joseph’s status as the youngest of Jacob’s children also makes him a figure of Christ, who comes as the last of God’s emissaries, like the son in the Parable of the Vineyard, which is read as the Gospel on this day, Matthew 21, 33-46. In his treatise On the Blessings of the Patriarchs (11, 48), which explains the blessings imparted by Jacob to his sons in Genesis 49, he writes:

My son, he says, is younger. Truly younger, because he was the last born. And the Scripture says “Jacob loved him, because he was the son of his old age. (Gen. 37, 3). This also refers to Christ; for the son of God, through the child-bearing of the Virgin Mary, came late, shining upon a world grown old and already failing, and as the son of old age according to the mystery took a body, even He that before the ages was always with the Father. (Ambrose’s citation of Genesis 49, 22, “filius meus adolescentior”, derives from the Septuagint reading of a famously difficult passage.)

The tunic of Joseph, which his brothers dipped in goat’s blood in order to make Jacob believe that he was killed by an animal, is then read as a symbol of the body which Christ took upon Himself in the Incarnation, so that He might undergo the Passion. The tunic was “bloodied”, as the body of Christ was bloodied, again looking forward from this Friday to Good Friday. St Ambrose says explicitly in his Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke (5, 107), “The tunic of Joseph was bloodied unto the likeness of the Lord’s body.” The Mass lectionary, however, ends with Ruben stopping the other brothers’ plan to kill Joseph, presuming that the hearers know how the story continues.

Jacob Receiving the Bloodied Tunic of Joseph, by Jan Lievens (1607-74); (public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Lent is, of course, also the period in which the Church prepares the catechumens to receive the Sacrament of Baptism on Easter night, and many of the traditional readings for the Lenten Masses are chosen with a view to their instruction. For St Augustine, Joseph prefigures the entry of the gentiles into the Church in Baptism; commenting on the words of Psalm 80, 6, “He ordained it for a testimony in Joseph, when he came out of the land of Egypt,” he says:

“Joseph” is translated as “increase.” You remember, you know that Joseph was sold into Egypt: (this is) Christ passing to the nations. … Joseph pertains more to the nations, and therefore (is called) “increase”, because “many are the sons of the desert, more than of her than hath a husband.” (Isaiah 54, 1; Augustine understand the “sons of the desert’ to be the gentiles, and the sons “of her that hath a husband” as the sons of Israel.) … When Joseph went out from the land of Egypt, which is to say, the people multiplied from Joseph, he was sent through the Red Sea… The passing of the people through the sea foretold in a figure exactly this, the passage of the faithful through Baptism. The Apostle is my witness; he says “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea.” (1 Cor. 10, 1-2) Therefore, the passage though the sea signified nothing else than the Sacrament of the baptized. (Exposition of Psalm 80)

This interpretation of the Passing of the Red Sea is also extremely ancient; the scene appears on many ancient Christian sarcophagi, and the story is read at the Easter vigil in all historical rites.

The Crossing of the Red Sea, depicted on a paleo-Christian sarcophagus, the front of which was sawn off and used as the front of an altar in the cathedral of Arles, France.

In his book specifically about Joseph, St Ambrose explains one of the dreams recounted in today’s Epistle as a prophecy of a different aspect of Christ’s life.

Finally, in the boy the divine grace showed forth, since indeed he dreamed, when he had bound sheaves with his brothers, that it might appear to him in a vision, his sheaf arose, and stood upright; and those of his brothers turned and worshipped his. In which assuredly the future resurrection of the Lord Jesus was revealed, whom the eleven disciples worshiped when they had seen him in Jerusalem… (De Joseph Patriarcha, cap. 2, 7)

The story of Joseph read on this Friday therefore prophesies not only what happens on Good Friday, the Passion, but also looks forward to the Friday of Easter week, when the traditional Gospel is St Matthew 28, 16-20, in which Christ meets the eleven disciples, “and they adored Him.”

In the post-Conciliar lectionary, the story has been retained, but is told through a different selection of verses, removing all but two glancing references to Joseph’s prophetic dreams (3-4, 12-13, and 17b-28). The verses added on to the traditional version of the readings (23-28), in which the brothers sell Joseph as a slave, rather than kill him, are no longer read in the Office, and therefore find a place in the Mass. The traditional Gospel has also been retained, but, like many of Our Lord’s harder sayings, verse 44 has been censored out of it: “And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.”

One of the most important features of Lent in the Byzantine Rite is the Canon of St Andrew of Crete, an extraordinarily beautiful series of meditations on sin and exhortations to repentance, filled with typological and mystical explanations of Scripture, drawn from both Testaments. The following four tropars refer to the story of Joseph.

tropar I confess to thee, o Christ the King: I have sinned, I have sinned, like Joseph’s brothers of old, who sold the fruit of chastity and of prudence. (The Church Fathers, and Jewish interpreters of the Bible before them, saw Joseph as a model of chastity, because he refused the advances of Potiphar’s wife, and of prudence, because of the way he saves not only his own family, but the whole of Egypt, from the famine.)

tropar The just soul was delivered up by his kinsmen; the one dear (to his father) was sold into slavery, as a type of the Lord; and you yourself, (my) soul, are sold entirely to your evil deeds.

tropar Imitate Joseph the just, and his prudent mind, my wretched, reprobate soul, and be no longer wanton, that dost ever transgress in unreasonable impulses.

tropar If Joseph did once dwell in a cistern, Master and Lord, it was as a type of Thy burial and resurrection; but what such thing may ever I bring to Thee?

Joseph Placed in the Cistern, and Sold to the Midianites; icon by Theodoros Poulakis, 1677-82. modelled on an engraving by the Flemish artist Jan Sadeler. From the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, Greece.

On Holy Monday, a special commemoration is made of Joseph.

tropar Joseph, making an image of the Lord, is put down into the cistern, he is sold away by his kinsman; famously, he suffereth all things, truly as a type of Christ. (From another Canon of St Andrew, sung at Compline.)

ikos Let us now add lamentation to lamentation, and pour forth tears, weeping with Jacob for Joseph, renowned and prudent, made a slave in body, but preserving his soul free from slavery, that became lord of all of Egypt, for God grants an unperishable crown to his servants. (At Orthros.)

St Abraham the Patriarch, October 9th - Do We Commemorate Old Testament Saints?

Yesterday, October 9th, was the feast day of the Patriarch St Abraham, who is called by the Martyrology “The Father of All Believers.”

It is common for the Saints of the Old Testament to be commemorated in the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern churches, and the Patriarchs and Prophets are commonly patrons of churches, and referred to as Saints. Here is a fresco in which three patriarchs Ss Abraham, Isaac and Jacob appear. These might be life-size on the wall of the church, so that one would get the impression that these figures are praying the liturgy with us.

I started to consider this because this is the latest in the occasional series about images of the Saints named in the Roman Canon, of whom Abraham is one. I realised as I did so that I can't remember ever being present at a Roman Rite church where there was such a commemoration. Perhaps it is time for this to change? Is there a Roman Catholic Church of St Abraham anywhere? Please let me know!

He is clearly a central figure for us. Abraham is referred to in the following passage from the words of the Mass:

Look with favor on these offerings and accept them as once you accepted the gifts of your servant Abel, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchizedek.

This is not the only daily liturgical reference to Abraham. He is referred to in the Gospel canticles sung daily at Lauds and Vespers, the Benedictus and the Magnificat, and in both of them he is called “Father.” There could be a incensing of his image during either of these on certain days.

The place of the Patriarchs of the Old Testament in salvation history is, as I understand it, that of establishing the practises of faith. In this sense, Abraham clearly has a place in the establishment of liturgical tradition through his being prepared to sacrifice his only son, and ultimately sacrificing a ram.

Here is an image which might be appropriate behind the altar in a church, a 6th century mosaic from Ravenna in Italy.

It connects the sacrifices of Abraham, Abel the Just and Melchizedek with the Mass in ways both obvious and subtle. First the obvious: it connects them with the Mass by placing them in a church and clearly setting Melchizedek’s offering of wine and bread on an altar in greater prominence. The artist tells us directly who they are by writing their names in the picture, something that artists today should perhaps think about. Don’t make the symbolism or connections mysterious; tell us who the people are in writing. If there is an appropriate biblical reference that clarifies things, then write that in the picture too.

The more subtle connection with Christ is the placement of the eight-pointed star on the front of the altar, indicating that the altar itself represents Christ, and the eighth day of Creation, as His Resurrection is celebrated on the eighth day of the week, Sunday.

Another mosaic from Ravenna has Abraham as the theme.

In this we see a depiction of the sacrifice again, but also the scene known as the Hospitality of Abraham, Genesis 18, 1-15, in which he welcomes three strangers. They are three angels under the appearance of men, traditionally seen as symbols of the three persons of the Trinity. This second theme is also the subject of many famous paintings. After an Eastern iconographic depiction, which will be familiar to many through that of Andrei Rublev, I give two Western images. The first is 16th century Italian, the second 15th century Flemish.

The Hospitality of Abraham, 16th-century, Rostov-Suzdal School

Abraham and the Angels, by Sebastiano Ricci, ca, 1694

Abraham and the Angels, by Josse Lieferinxe, ca. 1500

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The Feast of All Saints 2013: The Patriarchs and Prophets

From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the fourth day in the Octave of All Saints:

The holy solemnity of this day is also of course dedicated to the saints most dear to God, the fathers of the Old Testament, whose prayers and deeds rightly should be both remembered and imitated. Greatly desiring the coming of the Savior, being chosen and raised up (by God) in the promise made to the royal house, and in the priestly succession, they beat down their enemies, and raised up a temple to the Lord as a type of the Church, to show that Our Lord Jesus Christ would break down the tyrannical law of the devil, for the salvation of the faithful, and being Himself both king and priest, would order a royal priesthood in His Church. Upon these men, glorious in their virtues and the merits of their lives, followeth the chosen order of the holy Prophets, to whom was entrusted, because of the purity of their lives, the blessed series of revelations, telling of the salvation that was to come, and the same portion of inheritance promised. At the last, the Forerunner of Christ, John, succeeded them, a man wholly angelic, of whom the Lord Himself foretold through the mouth of Malachi, “Behold I send my angel before Thy countenance, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee.”

Icon of St. John the Baptist, anonymous Cretan painter, ca. 1600, from the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece. Many icons of St John show him with wings like an angel, in reference to the words cited above from Malachi 3, 1.